blogdogblog

Residents Urged

First it was "Not Just for Granny Anymore" and then it was the "New Yoga." How difficult it must be to think of something fresh to write about knitting for the mainstream media. So we have to give props to the writer who slugged his story about knitting's popularity thusly:

RESIDENTS URGED TO JOIN KNITTING CRAZE

Dear me! What will happen to them if they don't? Will Residents Who Won't Knit be URGED TO FLEE?

Should we be alarmed?

(There's actually a nice volunteer event in Shropshire associated with this story—The Big Knit 2005. You can read about it here.)

I'm simply giddy over that headline. If the urged residents won't be urged, will they be harrassed and intimidated by knitters who will, presumably, be roaming the streets, just hoping to meet up with non-knitters?

Beats me. The life you knit may be your own. (By the way, you can see more of the knit designer Alexander Serafimov's work here.)

Oh well. Maybe you had to be there. Or not. Meanwhile, take a look at the galleries of Liz Powner's knitted pop stars.

Mikey urges residents to walk their dachshunds.

Cheers!

Doll Collection

We are making use of our temporarily at-ease knees and getting lots of non-knitting stuff done, but I do want to point you to the last couple of entries at brillante Cynthia's Art for Housewives. Cynthia has unearthed every kind of doll you can imagine, and several that you couldn't possibly imagine. A couple that you wouldn't want to imagine :-)

We hope you make some time today to learn what artists have done and are doing with dolls. Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is surf the links that are provided in the 26 and 27 April entries. Have fun! Be amazed!

Dachshund.

Auf deine Gesundheit!

Not Lots

We wish we had boat-loads of interesting knitting news to tell you, but while we are mentally composing some very interesting knitting, we only have our cheerful socks to show:

I keep forgetting to tell you about the yarn. It's Froelich Blauband Maxi Ringel, and I bought mine from Julie. I have this green, some orange, and two additional skeins of a nice purple-violet-lavender. So that's that on the knitting front.

Pups

We weren't able to attend the Weiner-dog Races in Buda (warning! annoying pop-up) this weekend because one of us was having trouble with our knees, but you can watch a short video by scrolling about halfway down the page and selecting the video link on the right-hand side. You'll see lots of people acting silly over lots of dachshunds.

Saddened as we were about missing the event, we completely perked up around here yesterday afternoon because all of us, furry and otherwise, were able to go for a proper walk for the first time in a what seemed like a very long while.

Mike, Jack, and Della are extremely pleased at this turn of events. How is it possible, you ask? Well! My most excellent nephew took this photo of my interim knees that tells the whole story:

Knee braces may look awful to you, but for us, they are enabling dachshund-walking! Yay! And regular walking! (and driving! shopping! and everything else you use your knees for :-))

Mike likes to wash his feet in the water bowl upon our return. You can imagine how Jack and Della feel about that.

So that's our tiny bit of news. And, it's Tuesday!

Cheers!

"In this identical guise"

Sometimes self-striping yarns match up perfectly whether you knit them in sunlight or in shadows, whether you are trying or not trying.

It happens so often, in fact, that you could safely knit by moonlight.

Yet, I cannot categorically recommend knitting self-striping yarn in the glow of insomnia because, by the morning light, you may find yourself wondering WTF??

Curious. We were going to rip, and then remembered our hero Gwendolyn Brooks:

"Exhaust the little moment. Soon it dies.
And be it gash or gold it will not come
Again in this identical guise."

Won't they be interesting, even for so-called fraternal socks?

Happy Thursday. Do your knee exercises. Take your vitamins.
Exhaust the little moment!

Cheers!

Knitting + Art = Magic Mushrooms

Let's visit the Greene Naftali Gallery for artist Jim Drain's current Knitted Art show "I Wish I Had a Beak." Enter the gallery, select Exhibitions, then Current for a small slide show.

From the press release: "Base materials, references to low culture, and a strategic deployment of dumbness are contrasted with a grace of labor, clunky elegance and a clean economy of materials."

You can view a single photo of some of the knitted sculptures here.

New Yorkers and others within a train ride, we'd like a personal report, please.

Our own knitting is quite tedious at the moment as we are still getting "Beauty and the Bias" back in action. Thanks for your help, kindly commenters!

Wednesday. Shuffle on.

Cheers!

Your Advice Requested

Remember this thing?

Me? I had forgotten it. I remember it was going along quite nicely and then Disaster Struck in a manner that required ripping lace back.

However, it's actually quite nice and two-thirds finished and I'd like to be able to complete and wear it. However, I feel quite daunted by how clumsily I am picking up stitches and yarnovers. Is there an easier way? It's the yarnovers, actually, that are confusing me. They are rather loose and so I'm not quite sure which stitch goes where. And because I love a challenge, I forgot to mark where I had left off in the pattern :-) Any tips?

Tuesday. Whaddaya know!

Cheers!

Juicy

Things are starting to look a bit tropical around here.

Blooming hibiscus:

Juicy-looking Queen Kahuna-type socks-in-progress:

I keep forgetting to mention, whenever I mention the Queen Kahuna book, that there are directions for knitting Crazy Toes and Heels with dpns. You don't have to use circulars, and can knit the socks toe-up or cuff-down.

Crochet Corner

Over the weekend, I was surfing about for something I've now forgotten, because, via Cindy at Crochet Chronicles, I found a link to the online portfolio of artist Agata Olek. Wowie wow wow! Sometime today please take the time to look at the crochet-covered skeleton that can be seen by selecting the link to "Crocheted Readymade." The other gallery items are equally surprising; I highly recommend clicking through the whole website. The "Wearable Sculptures" are whimsical and thought-provoking; it is liberating to imagine these pieces being worn as temporary "installations" in city centers. If you were crocheting (or knitting) public art, what would it look like?

Pups

The pups resentfully spent another weekend at home. I think they will be as glad as me when the difficulties with my knees go away. In the meantime, they are chewing up the garden to express their displeasure with short walks.

Monday. So soon! We hope yours goes quickly and smoothly.
Cheers!

Right Ho—Size Matters

Back at the beginning of March this year, when our hopes for lacy knitting were high, Jessica quoted Amy Detjan in the comments section and called Hazel Carter's shawl Violets by the River "Violence by the River." At the time, I chortled and knit on, oblivious to the warnings of wiser lace knitters than me. "Unseen, in the background, Fate was quietly slipping the lead into the boxing glove."

You know how when you buy a lace pattern, and it calls for laceweight yarn under Supplies, and the pattern's author writes, "Aim for (thus and such) per inch, but gauge really isn't important for this shawl."? Sadly, this optimistic phrase really isn't unimportant. You may recall that I was using the extremely fine and lovely Artisan Lace wool by Margaret Stove. Isn't it lovely stuff?

The silk in the original kit, I would say, is more of a fingering weight. Artisan Lace (Alert! My opinion to follow!) is a truer lace-weight, more in the nature of sewing thread, only slightly heavier than Shetland cobweb. Thus, after knitting and knitting with M. Stove's beautiful laceweight wool, I have a miniaturized miniscule completely tiny Violets by the River hankerchief, barely wide enough to cover my shoulders! Doesn't that just take the mottled oyster?

I want to be perfectly fair and state categorically that the pattern's author *does* call Violets by the River a "small shawl/SCARF," but this isn't as big as a bandana no matter how I stretch it. A rum go, and completely my fault.

I mean, dash it all, Bertie, gauge always matters!

I'm not going to bother knitting the beautiful wavy river-y border on to this version, but instead start over, more near a proper gauge, with hope of having a proper-sized shawl. The pattern, btw, is delightful to knit and produces delightful results.

Isn't knitting wonderful? Despite doing it with sticks since I was a mere tot, I still find I learn something new (sometimes again and again) with each project. :-)

Even so, we are all smiles here because it is Friday. Pip-pip! and

Cheers!

Where? How?

Some knitted lamps to show you today.

Here

Here

Here

Now. Can someone please tell me how to dry things in a vacuum, starting with what kind of vacuum to use, and where you get one? Where do you get resin? For that matter, what is resin? We thank you.

It's a mystery to us.

cheers!

Textiles: So What Else is New

What's-it?

A Pi Shawl gone wrong? Tatting? Crochet? We'll step back a bit and look at the whole photo by Matt Flynn:

Did you guess yet? Did you guess that it is an implantable device for reconstructive shoulder surgery by way of fiber-y innovation? Cool! CNET has picked up the NYT registration-required story on Extreme Textiles, and it is definitely interesting reading about new uses for knitting and weaving and braiding and more. Select the electrospun fiber mask photo on the left side of the story to view all 14 photos of cool textiles with extreme uses. Isn't it wonderful that neither CNET nor the Times slugged this with a headline like "Electrospun Fiber: Not Just for Granny Anymore" ?

Socks

I'm into the next pair of Crazy Heels and Toes. I like it! I thought I was through with socks when I gave away enough sock yarn for 38 pairs during the February caption contest. What an excellent precipitous and fortunate move on my part! Now that I'm interested in socks again, I can buy new sock yarn! Yeah! Here's some Froehlich Blauband Maxi Ringel from that nice Julie at Pieces of String:

By the way, I was delighted to hear from so many of you that the sock yarn you recieved was "just your color" or new to you, or some-such...the yarns were randomly selected while I filled envelopes, so I feel quite lucky about how it turned out. I hope if it didn't turn out quite that well for you that you've traded up for something that suits you better...socks are no fun if knit from yarn you don't like.

Happy Wednesday, right? Take Mikey's advice and Sell It.
Cheers!

Old Dogs New Tricks

When I first started knitting socks, Socknitters had many fewer members than the current 7000+, and in 1999, it was swell to be able to turn to the more practiced knitters on that list and ask the type of questions that are always answered with the preface: "There's no such thing as a dumb question!" The Socknitters and Nancy Bush's book Folk Socks (ISBN: 0934026971) taught me a heck of a lot about socknitting back in the days when we all knit them on 4 (or 5) dpns.

I regretfully quit participating in the list about the time Opal sock yarn hit the market, but it remains an invaluable resource to me. I made the move to two circulars and never looked back, and shortly thereafter, many of us moved on to one circular. Endless socks! And seemingly nothing new to learn about them.

However, in reading Jerry's blog,, I found he'd received a copy of the latest thang in socknitting, Mary Ann Beattie's Crazy Toes and Heels book. You can read what he says about the book here (and wish him a happy belated 58th!).

Ms. Beattie is known to the Socknitters' as Queen Kahuna, and she has self-published a book of instructions on knitting two socks at a time on two circulars, toe up or toe down. Many of you who have been reading my blog for a while know that I am quite resentful when I find out I don't know everything :-) So on the strength of Jerry's mini-review, I rushed off to Queen Kahuna's and after gulping at the price ($24.95), made the leap and ordered a copy for myself. It arrived within a few days in a charming chintz drawstring bag.

At first glance, I was snobbishly disappointed in the production values. But on second glance, I was intrigued to the point that I pulled out sock yarn and some needles and sat down to try the Aloha cast on. By the time I completed a pair of sock-toes, I was completely delighted with Queen Kahuna's format. This is a big (8.5 x 11 in) fat (~100 pages) spiral-bound book that is so full of good tricks that I can hardly believe it! Ms. Beattie refers to her book as being for the visual learner thusly: "...if you need patterns that say, do this and it should look like this picture.'" And sure enough, this book is broken down into a series of steps with photographs that walk you through knitting socks from start to finish. You can view (and download the .pdf file) an example of the format of the book here, where the Queen illustrates how to Kitchener a sock toe. (While you're there, have a look at socks knit using this method on toothpicks!)

There's an innovative way to provisionally cast on that, to me, was worth the price of the book all by itself. And then there are the unusual side gussets, and the round toes and heels, and dozens of tips along the way until you reach the cuffs, as I did, of a pair of socks. I don't have as much time to knit as I previously did, but even I was able to crank out a pair of toe-up socks the Queen Kahuna way in under a week. And they fit wonderfully! This book is actually so clearly illustrated in a step-by-step way that I have been thinking of leaving sock yarn and needles out on the open book in case the dachshunds want to have a go at it while I'm at work.

I'm an old socknitter, but there are plenty of new tricks for me to learn in this book. The production values are quirky but charming. Those of you who are of the editorial persuasion may be initially irritated by spelling errors and what you may think are excessive quotation marks. But if you look past those and follow along with the photos and text, I think you'll be delighted, as I was, by Ms. Beattie's plain talk about some pretty fancy techniques.

I like to think I keep up with what's happening in the world of knitting, and I googled around on some of the sock tricks in this book to see if I could find similar on the Internet. I didn't. Much of this book seems to genuinely fall into the "New Tricks" category.

You can visit Ms. Beattie's website to gain more insight into the flavor of her writing style and for some free stuff. There is also a yahoo group and Ms. Beattie is a benevolent presence on it, dispensing further tips, how-tos, and patterns.

This book has grown on me over the past week to the point that I think it's the most wonderful investment in socknitting that I've made in years. I think you might find it the same, whether you are a beginner or an old hand at socks, as I am. If you feel stuck in a sock-rut, this book will definitely shake you out of it. We give it our highest accolade: 12 Paws Up.

And speaking of the paws that refresh us, here's sunny Mikey, wishing you a wonderful Tuesday.

Cheers!

Here, Here (There)

"exploration of limitations"

See Knitted Webs. Don't miss the scroll-down to "some more pix."

Crochet battery cable here.

What are you working on? I'm working on a bunch of stuff for the "sea change": Amber's un-knitalong (see her April 04, 2005, post). Cheers! and see you Tuesday with a book review.

[cute pet photos here.]

Frappy Hiday!

Wendy and her readers have been looking back to 80s fashions this week; in the future will we look back nostalgically and say to ourselves "Remember 2005? When everybody had a blog?"

Coincidentally this week, Leigh has been talking about cringe-worthy blog entries. Will we look back in horror at some of the stuff we blithely set loose on the Internet? (Leigh is also knitting and knitting a beautiful glove.)

Both these blog-event-entries, Wendy's and Leigh's, made us think here at the blogdogblog. Yesterday marked our two-year blog anniversary. Yep! April 7, 2003: a blog! some dogs! blogdogblog is two years old. Take a trip down blogMemory Lane and see Laura's skull vest in the early stages (and finished, too!).

Looking back, we had book reviews and a baby surprise jacket; we had a cowboy cutie and corrugated ribbing; we had hives! and we had hats for homeless veterans. We had gloves and gadgets and even some glamor! We had pythons and pedicures, and we moved from the East Coast to the No-Coast. We had birthdays and pirates and a cotton-y field-trip. We met wonderful knit bloggers in person, we were rejected by Knitty for lack of artistic and professional values in our photos, and we even had a run-in with bozo knitters. Am I cringing? Maybe you are, but all in all, I've had a marvelous time. And some of it was spent reading Leigh's blog, which to my eyes, has always featured beautiful knitting, beautiful photos, beautiful spinning, and beautiful writing.

Paradoxically, as the knitting blogs- ring has grown and grown and grown, I find I read fewer and fewer blogs . . . what does that mean? Less time? Less interest? Overkill? No. Not at all! It's not you, it's me. The dozen or so blogs I go back to again and again are authored by knitters who couldn't be more different to one another in their lifestyles, and who extend their knitting and needlecraft to me from a number of global knitting nooks. I've never read a "I've been too busy to blog" entry on any of them, by the way. ;-)

My very first blog entry was dedicated to Wendy because reading her blog every day for nearly a year made me want a blog of my own. I was just beginning two-color stranded knitting and its accompanying steekiness and Wendy was an inspiration and a coach. Knitting blogs made knitting exciting to me again. Yay! for all you knitting schmoos!

So, while I don't read everybody yet, I'd like to. And, overall, I gotta say that I just love knitting blogs, and crochet blogs, and fiber art blogs, and textile news blogs, and the ability to connect with and learn from so many of you on an electronic basis. I just gotta find a way to meet more of you. And, my dear dozen dears, you know who you are and I thank you for your unflagging committment to keeping me entertained. Mwah! and woofs! I'm eager to meet the other 600+ of you. Really!

What?

Still here?

Bless your heart! Coming next week, a review of Crazy Toes and Heels and some photos of finished objects. About time, right? This blog was starting to look a bit, um, en français! schmurmudgeonly.

We wish you the frappiest hiday ever!!

Cheers! And keep on knit-blogging . . .please :-)

Knitting, War, Art

Artist Nina Rosenberg is seeking tiny hand-knit red sweaters. You can participate in the creation of an art installation at Redsweater.

Thursday. Lordy!
Cheers!

Witless with Joy

Kylie over at Knitting in Public posts lots of interesting items all the time—I highly recommend a visit to her blog, but I really don't have to, as you'll want to rush right over when you see what she has found.

Observe Della, letting us all know what she thinks about Spring-Forward Time Changes:

Now, thanks to Kylie's quick eye for the useful and fabulous, observe Della as a ready-to-knit chart:

As the chic-est chicknitter would say, "WOOT!" Kylie has the skinny on what this useful tool is about and where you can find it and why it's being offered to knitters for free. GOGOGO to Kylie's!

This cool tool is also an excellent lead in for a blurb here about the "Knit Against the Machine" un-KnitaLong over at Amber's. Amber has been supplying us with some excellent posts the past few days that provide provocative food for knitting thought. Mouse on over and see what gets your knitfreak on—yeah!

Tuesday. We're off to work. In the dark. Cheers (sorta)!

Noted in Passing

Robin L Bergman's incredible sweaters. Select the Products button in the left frame and enjoy the show.

Then, go see the Yarnshifter. Don't miss the Gallery.

Aren't fiber artists getting up to some incredible stuff?

Friday! Watch out for April fools. If in Austin, watch out for people (and pets) crazed by oak pollen.

Cheers!